The US Department of Commerce has authorised about ten Chinese companies to purchase H200 AI chips from US-based Nvidia Corp, Reuters writes, citing sources.
According to them, these companies include Alibaba, Tencent, ByteDance (parent company of TikTok) and JD.com Inc.
In addition, a number of distributors, notably Lenovo and Foxconn, have also been approved. Each customer can buy a maximum of 75,000 chips directly from Nvidia or distributors, two of the three sources said.
Lenovo confirmed to Reuters that it is part of “several companies that are allowed to sell the H200 in China under Nvidia’s export licence”.
The U.S. Commerce Department declined a request for comment from Reuters. China’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) and Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, as well as Nvidia, Alibaba, Tencent, ByteDance, JD.com and Foxconn did not respond to the agency’s request for comment.
According to its sources, no batch of chips has been delivered yet. Chinese companies are refraining from deals on Beijing’s recommendation, one of them said. China’s stance is linked in particular to changes on the US side, but what exactly has changed remains unclear, he notes. Another source said lobbying for Beijing to block or tightly control such orders is intensifying.
In March, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said the company had resumed production of the H200 for the Chinese market. “We have been approved for a lot of customers in the PRC,” he said during a conference in San Jose, California. – We have received orders from multiple customers and are in the process of restarting production. The supply chain is winding down.”
In a filing published in late February, Nvidia noted that it had received approval to ship “a small number of H200 products” to China, but it has not yet generated revenue.
In December, US authorities said they would allow the company to sell the H200 in China, provided it handed over 25 per cent of the revenue. In late January this year, following Huang’s visit, Beijing signalled that it would also allow shipments of the chips.
Before Washington imposed export restrictions, Nvidia had about 95 per cent of the Chinese market for advanced chips, with China accounting for up to 13 per cent of its revenue. Huang predicted the Chinese AI market turnover for this year at $50bn.
The Nvidia CEO is in China with an American delegation led by US President Donald Trump and has already met with Premier Li Qiang of the State Council.